ecurity sources in Paris said the suspected Islamist - arrested along with his brother on Thursday in Vienne near Lyon, worked on projects for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) on the Franco-Swiss border just outside Geneva.
The 32-year old Frenchman of Algerian origin was last night being held with his 25-year old brother at the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence - France's equivalent to MI5 - in Levallois-Perret, northwest of Paris..

Under anti-terror laws, they can be held for four days before being formally charged.

Investigators described the older man as "very high level" and said that he had been in contact with individuals linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim) - the North African wing of the terrorist network - about potential targets in France.

Intelligence sources said he had expressed a "wish, a desire" to carry out a terrorist attack but had "not committed material preparatory acts".

The Large Hadron Collider is the mini-blackhole creator designed for exploring the post-Big-Bang universe.

They claim he did not have access to any sort of technology that would be helpful for carrying out attacks. Obviously, Al Qaeda is not going to suddenly be able to weaponize a Black Hole Bomb.

But...

It is hard for me to believe these guys didn't have access to an awful lot of nuke-tech stuff.

Not sure how much that matters, given that Iran's going to have the bomb in two years anyway.